Codemotion 2013 + new Speed Fragment tech demo

Codemotion 2013 + new Speed Fragment tech demo

Oh no, I did it again: I let almost two months pass between one post and another… This is going out of control!

At least I always find some time to update my Twitter stream, and more important… To attend interesting events like Codemotion, which I went to on May 22 and 23.

I was present to the same event last year, with Beach Marbles Racing, Strike Crossing and Duel Of Speed. But this time, The Speed Fragment was the new main star of my desk: the new tech demo, which you can also find in this post, got very good attention in the event!

A part of the Area 151. I’m the guy sitting in the middle! Photo courtesy of Ciro Continisio.

Oh, but wait, what is Codemotion? If you don’t know yet, It’s an open event dedicated to all scripting languages and technologies, which takes place once in a year in a bunch of European big cities. There are lots of interesting talks about many different topics, ranging from web development to electronics, from gaming to security systems. For more informations, follow the link at the beginning of this post!

The event itself went really well though our dedicated indie showcase area, called Area 151, saw less developers and titles this year, being in fact only Beach Marbles Racing, The Speed Fragment, Steampunk League, UFHO2, Skiddy and SMU∞. Last year there were two teams more, if I’m not wrong!

This little girl was playing Beach Marbles like a boss: she won four consecutive courses! Photo courtesy of Ciro Continisio.

My games at Codemotion

The Speed Fragment got indeed the best feedback among all my demos, due to its fast and fun nature. Even if most people couldn’t drive well in Hard mode, they managed to do fine in Easy mode. Much feedback was given obviously about the difficulty of the game, which is above the average by my personal choice: Hard mode was really fast and fun, but too much fast for casual players (also because the rubber-band difficulty was broken, my fault)… Another problem was the track visibility: at high speed, it was a bit difficult to guess what corner was coming up next. Anyways, the overall game has been appreciated a lot, both in gameplay and graphic style, so I am quite proud of this.

Beach Marbles Racing got its best feedback when talking about graphics! A bunch of visitors were really surprised by the graphical quality of the game. What has been reported wrong, though, was the unaccurate marble physics, which plays way too slow compared to real beach marbles. This thing has been brought to my attention especially by a guy who told me he passed most of his childhood days playing real marbles on the beach with his friends, so he was kind of an expert. Despite this physics unaccuracy, he really loved the game. His feedback was very precious, so I hope to use it the best way I can.

Latest Speed Fragment tech demo

For all of you who didn’t attend Codemotion in Rome, here’s the new Speed Fragment tech demo I showcased! This time the game looks more decent than the December version, thanks to sounds, music (courtesy of Jake Kaufman from its album FX4 <3 ), and better/easier menu organization. Here’s the link:

Retina iPad screenshot from the new tech demo! What are all these artifacts?!

Keep in mind the scenery you see in this demo is only a placeholder one: I’m already at work on the final version. Unfortunately I only had time to create a temporary environment, and in fact, you will notice all buildings are simple cuboid shapes, with random tiled textures. The overall effect is good, but not a single centimeter close to what I want.

Next tasks for my projects

It’s quite hard to talk about what’s coming next, mostly because my lack of time which leads me to have very, very long deadlines… But with the incoming Svilupparty, I really need to update both my projects as best as I can. Before that event, I should be able to do all of this:

If I manage to get all these points done, I promise I’ll throw a cool event at Svilupparty, so you better attend it. :D

Sorry for having posted with some days of delay, but at this point you should know well my timings! Thanks again for reading, my dear followers, see you around in the web! Oh, and obviously, let me know what you think of the latest tech demo.

Danjel

2 Responses to “Codemotion 2013 + new Speed Fragment tech demo”

Hey Danjel!!! Great introduction! I would say emotional
Gameplay is improving and the “hard” mode remings me of the plot of Flight of the Navigator…who manages to arrive 1st gets hired by some alien confederation to pilot the fastest car existing and save the world or something :D